It is the story of a village where nobody could read or write…it is the story of a city where still reigns a Marxist government but few have read Marx…it is the story of a basti where nobody knew about developmental economics. This is a place – my utopia which I write everyday but like a postmodern novel I am a character there – character-narrator-observer. Driving narrow alleys infested with playing children every day I reach my destination (that is where my destiny takes me) and as I reach my bent brow becomes straight – the sigh of relief.
Then one day writing entered the world of speech…Marx peeped through their windows…promises of development started spreading wings. The slumdogs also dreamt of becoming millionaires. As almost none of them could participate in Kaun Banega Crorepati the only other option seemed to cast votes. Collaboration with local party members demanding the minimum rights to live a life of dignity from which they are already and for always deprived seemed to be the politics of the governed. This is perhaps the only way ‘they’ come close to ‘us’ – make their presence felt.
Once I worked in a Govt. Sponsored so-called Bengali medium school (child of democracy and poverty in holy wedlock of unignorable understanding and negotiation) and shocked by the lack of discipline and uncouthness of the students there left my job in no time. I still remember how the students came to school after election results clad in colours. I would never forget how when I asked a class full of high school students about their future plans one answered boldly ‘I want to be a politician sir’. I remember when I was a school going boy a guy of my age from the basti once took up the challenge of walking down a park stark naked. I was shocked at his unabashed behavior – how his nakedness made me aware of my clothes.
Well election is not that important to me. I did not cast my vote this time as I felt none of the parties fit to be elected. The act of casting vote is a choice for me. I can step back and say no. But what about those whose very presence cannot be justified by law – who are either dispossessed or never possessed any civic rights at all in the drama of democracy where they can act only as chorus. Yes, they report us of the violence of electoral system. Somebody like Bapi Dhar’s death can never be represented on stage – it can only be known and felt when choric lament reach our ears and we are yet to decide whether he was an anti-social or a social worker.
Perhaps we are clad with the garb of democracy so much that we don’t realize we are wearing clothes. We are citizens and shall remain so whether we cast our votes or not. They are never fully citizens and perhaps can never be. Injustice is so much that we can only think of reducing it and can hardly hope for ‘justice’ (Do I dare to invoke Amartya Sen in this messy argument?). Democracy is only a promise for them that is yet to come (never think my fertile brain is trying to drag Derrida here!) and they cast their votes to bargain it. They play the game of dressing and undressing while we already take our clothes to be our skin. Election sometimes pushes us to confront nakedness – garbing and ungarbing of democracy. After the Municipality election results were out when I was returning from an adda at one of my professor’s place where the farce of democracy was critically dissected I took an usual shortcut through a slum. I caught sight of some young boys playing on the streets. Jumping from the walls they were yelling ‘Debada jiteche! Debada jiteche!’ i.e. ‘Debada has won! Debada has won!’ Debada is the nickname of our local councilor. Till then my only engagement with the garb of electoral excitement was through Television news coverage and critical discussion in our addas. Now I confronted its nakedness – half naked children uttering slogans – perhaps their demands of democracy! When I was of that age I learnt reading and writing – I studied history, geography and literature but like Caliban they learn language to abuse even before receiving any formal education creating the unbridgeable gap between us and them. Perhaps this trauma of recognition or misrecognition is the predicament of any Indian scholar who chooses to study his ‘own’ people from whom his education and acculturation always keeps at a distance. In times of election while looking at them I learn to ask the question – ‘Who am I?’
